This spring I adjunct taught an undergraduate finance class at a local university. I thought the email request, "If you use the water cooler, please drop off your summer dues..." really captured the essence of the economics of being an adjunct instructor.
Every time I agree to adjunct teach (this is my 3rd time), I marvel at how little the university pays its adjunct faculty. If you consider how much time curriculum development takes, on an hourly basis, it approaches minimum wage. After each teaching stint, I conveniently forget the poor pay...only to be reminded the next time. But, if you want to teach and are not a tenure track professor, I guess it is the price of admission. Right?
It is the university's nickel and dime behavior that gets me. As an instructor, the first thing you have to do is get a faculty ID. When you do so, the clerk immediately asks, "how do you want to pay for your parking?" Really? We have to pay for parking? On our adjunct wages? OK...FINE, deduct it from my paycheck. The administrator responds, "Here is your parking pass. Go to the student store to buy that little plastic thing that hangs from your rear-view mirror that holds your parking pass." REALLY? We have to pay for the plastic parking pass holder???
It is a good thing I don't even know where the water cooler is...
